The

The I want to tell you a little bit more.

I want to tell you a little story about a pretty Appalachian girl named Willa Mae Martin,

or as we call her around here, the girl who married a corpse.

Willa May lived with her husband in a place called Clinch Valley over in eastern Tennessee.

They were a young couple, married at 17 and a shotgun wedding once Willa May realized that she was pregnant. They moved into a small rural home together and for at least a little while

they were happy. But tragically, around halfway through the

pregnancy, Willamay lost the baby, and unfair as it was, Alden, her husband, never forgave her

for it. He blamed Willamay for the miscarriage, saying she didn't take care of herself properly

and accused her of not loving him anymore.

He couldn't deal with the grief, so he drank, and when he drank, he beat Willa May something terrible.

And after a while, the only thing Willa May liked about her husband was the fact that he worked as an oil driller down in Texas.

That meant that he worked two weeks on and two weeks off, which for Willamay meant

two weeks of heaven, followed by two weeks of hell.

Whenever he was away, Alden asked his brother, Silas Martin, to check in on his wife

every so often to keep an eye on her.

He did as he asked, stopping by once a month or so to do all the

man's work around the home. But after a while, Silas, who was unmarried, began to wonder why

Willa May had such a melancholy about her. He talked to her sometimes and asked her questions,

and when Willa May realized that he was genuinely curious about her

and wasn't her husband's spy, she broke down and told him everything, how he beat her, how he

berated her, how her life was barely worth living. Silas did his best to comfort poor Willa

...